Tag Archives: social distancing

Punctures, Poetry and Police Procedurals

Sorry, after the events of the day, which included quite a lot of activity in the shop, I went home, had a puncture, called Green Flag to change the wheel (after the debacle of a few years ago) and embarked on my usual routine of wasting time. I was napping by midnight, when I should have been blogging and am, as usual, slightly ashamed of myself. However, I will get over it. In fact, I have. When I checked my emails this morning I find I have had two poems accepted by the Frogmore Papers.

Contrast this with yesterday. Yesterday I told you about a magazine that said it would “aim to” get back to me in three months. The Frogmore Papers got back to me in fourteen days. They have been about for a while and get plenty of submissions (“over 350” this time, according to the note) so it must be hard work. I’m going to modify my words of yesterday slightly – I’m not developing an artistic temperament, I’m developing a loyalty to people who work hard and make things easy for me.

Later this morning I’m off for a new tyre – by the time I’d got off the ring road to a quiet place to change a tyre it was beyond repair. It didn’t have a lot of life left in it, so this isn’t too bad, not like the time I ruined a brand new tyre by having to run with it flat for half a mile until I could get off a busy main road.

In fact, by the magic of modern technology, I have been to have my tyre replaced, sitting outside in the sun reading a crime novel and keeping my social distance. I’m back on tartan noir. You can’t escape it these days. The books are OK, but it’s a silly name. Two languages and black tartan? Really?

Time to make lunch now, then I may try a spot of poetry and some literary criticism. Or quizzes and a nap. The course of the afternoon has not yet been decided.

Gannets

I thought I’d give you Gannets today – from Bempton Cliffs in May 2017, when the weather was better, and we were allowed to travel.

It also ties in with the tartan noir, as they have quite a lot of Gannets in Scotland, as Tootlepedal’s holidays over the years have demonstrated.

Bringing out the worst in me…

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It’s 7.57. On a normal day I would just be lacing my shoes up, ready to take Julia to work. But today isn’t a normal day. I was at hospital for 6.55, securing one of the few remaining parking spaces. Either there are an awful lot of visitors outside opening hours or the staff are using the visitor spaces. I think you know where my money would go if I were a betting man.

I had a twenty minute wait at Phlebotomy because they needed a chat about gloves and the faults with the label printing software. During this time I also noticed that although we have “social distancing” in p[lace for chairs in the waiting room, the chair I selected was not socially distanced from the store cupboard.

When one member of staff used it, we were around 3 feet apart. When four members of staff needed it at the same time, three of them with trollies, I became part of a milling crowd of phlebotomists. I’m going to take a guess here, but my conclusion is that the person who drew up the seating plan had never been to outpatients.

I could go on to offer some suggestions for improvements, and discuss management and leader ship, but I’m eating my breakfast with one hand and typing with the other, thinking is probably a step too far. Anyway, next door’s builders are using power tools and it’s difficult to concentrate. There’s just something about getting the simple stuff wrong that really brings out the worst in me.

8.26 now. I’ve blogged, I’ve breakfasted and I’ve just checked the work eBay sales. It’s been a quiet week. I can’t see the day being distinguished by urgency and hard work.

Next time I post I will be fully vaccinated. It’s an all action day – blood test in the right arm this morning, vaccination in the left this afternoon. How’s that for advance planning? Two arms, two needles. I’m glad I don’t have a third needle to accommodate, as it would be a tricky choice.

Photo by Anna Shvets on Pexels.com

Photographs

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I’ve just written 289 words about what is happening to Julia at work. A lot of it comes under the heading of “least said, soonest mended” as I mentioned yesterday but she’s just given up over half her day off to a staff meeting and telephone calls with clients, so I wrote my thoughts on the matter.

Then I decided I’d better not publish them. So I won’t. I’ll just show you some photos from yesterday.

Sugar Skulls and Succulents

I don’t know why we seem to have so many sugar skulls around these days, they just seem to be fashionable, despite having nothing to do with the UK. THey don’t even seem to have anything to do with the USA or Australia, which is where we seem to draw a lot of our cultural references from these days. It’s a mystery. Julia doesn’t even know who brought them to the gardens and left them.

Three LIttle Birds and Origami

What with the Three Little Birdsreference and the origami, we seem to have added Reggae and Japanese Paper Folding to or international themes.

Inside the Polytunnel

Virtually everything you see here has been scrounged from skips. Only the polytunnel was purchased brand new, as the chance of finding a discarded polytunnel in a skip is small.

It is now set up to allow twelve people to eat and work in here (I use ‘work’ loosely) and still maintain a semblance of social distancing.

Everything in these pictures is edible. Yes, everything. I’m quite fond of apples and grapes, but have to admit the fat hen and sedum aren’t too bad either.

Apples

Grapes

Sedum

Fat Hen

In fact, with fat hen being used as spinach in Mediaeval times and sedum tasting a little like avocado they can be quite pleasant.

I did have a picture of what I think is ground ivy but it may be purple dead nettle or henbit – they are all edible but as it’s important to be accurate when you are foraging.

I’m going to start doing more foraging again as my interest has been rekindled by a few things I’ve seen recently.

Fly on a Fuchsia

Sumac blooming, or whatever it does

Moles like the garden too

SEnsory Garden

Some flowers from the garden. I have now caught up with yesterday…

Out and About

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We went to the gardens today to do some watering and check that everything was secured against the wind. It was 2.40 when we turned onto the Ring Road, We noted a short queue at Sainsbury’s (four people) but the Ring Road seemed to have plenty of traffic on it. As we passed the local McDonald’s we noted that the Drive Through was crowded, having now been open for two days. Forty-eight hours and the rush for junk food is already gripping the nation.

The verges and central reservations on the Ring Road are now being left longer as part of the new city bee initiative. having read it I see a lot of words, a lot of signs and a lot of onus being shifted to other people. What I don’t see is much action – unless you count saving money by mowing less. Pardon my cynicism, but I’ve seen this sort of thing before, and though I welcome it, I’m not sure how committed they really are. However, I’m glad to see them making the effort.

We saw two different sorts of sin and there is, I see from the website, for parks. Councils love signs.

We went past the roadworks near the shop and saw nobody working, before crossing the bridge and seeing nobody working there either. To be fair they may be underground, or under the bridge. Or they may not.

The Co-op on Wilford Lane had a queue of two. At the school they are putting signs up for the return next week. The yellow lines are for social distancing as they queue to get into school. The nation really loves a queue. If we defeat corona virus it will be because of queues and fines for petty offences.

Social Distancing

Return to School

We left at 4pm and noticed the queue at the Co-op had grown to 12 while we’d been away.

The queue at Sainsbury’s now stretched the length of the shop front.

I managed a shot of an unkempt central reservation on the way back, and the queue at McDonald’s. Unfortunately we didn’t stop in the right place to photograph the signs.

Bee Friendly Central Reservation

Stampede for Junk Food

After fish and chips from Captain Cod (support your local shop) we went to TESCO to pick up this week’s order. Apart from the large white cobs I’d ordered. There will be no classic bacon cobs for breakfast tomorrow. There were no substitutes. I am not happy.

A Confederacy of Dunces

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“When a true genius appears in the world, you may know him by this sign, that the dunces are all in confederacy against him.” – Jonathan Swift

The second shoe fell today – I am laid off until further notice. It wasn’t unexpected, and in some ways it’s a bit of a relief as I now know what is going to happen regarding work. I didn’t want to let anybody down, but I didn’t want to bring any germs home to Julia either.

This isn’t as selfless as it seems. Without Julia I couldn’t cope in a world of technology, political correctness and compassion. It isn’t in my nature and I need someone to guide me through it. I would be lost without her and would just have to fade away, which I don’t want to do that just yet. They call it the widowhood effect.

Having done badly in a round of Pointless which demanded knowledge of US State capitals I will be starting a course of increasing my general knowledge from tomorrow.

I’m also planning on measuring and cataloguing my collection of Peace Medallions.

After that I may rearrange my sock drawer. The question is whether to sort them by colour, length or type.

After that I may run down the street screaming and waving an axe.

I’ve been amusing myself with watching news reports of the coronavirus, or even news reports not about the coronavirus. Listen to the advice then watch what happens.

There were pictures on TV of Italian policemen stopping people for breaking curfew. Some police were wearing masks pulled away from their mouths and noses and others were wearing them over moustaches.

Our government advice is that healthy people should not wear masks, and that masks without eye protection are not useful. Advice for many years has been that masks don’t seal properly if you have facial hair. I have been told that many times by Health & Safety men, but I was working with chemicals, not pathogens. And finally, they only work when you wear them – seems obvious but several of the Italian Police hadn’t thought of that.

Then there were pictures of Alex Salmond. I’ll leave it to you if you read the article but look at how close they all are. That’s not two yards apart. To be honest, even if there was no coronavirus I’d be wary of standing too close to Alex Salmond after some of the things that were said at the trial.

How about the daily press conferences? They seem to have changed now but until yesterday the journalists all seemed rather tightly packed. Have a look at this picture– how far apart are they?

Do as I say and not as I do seems to be the watchword.

Tonight a news crew stopped a man in London and asked what he was doing. He was filming for his YouTube channel.

“Should you really be doing that?” they asked.

Am I the only one detecting the irony of the question? I’ve been saying for days that we’d be better off without all these news reporters roaming the streets to complain about people roaming the streets.

So there you are – the inside of my head during a day in the life of a crisis.

I will look for a picture, but I’m not sure I have any that are appropriate. Instead, here are some ducks on the duckpond at the Mencap garden. Julia took them on Friday when we popped by to water and check seedlings.

Ducks on a Pond

If you want a good book to read whilst self-isolating try this.

A Week I Wouldn’t Want Again (Part 3)

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On Saturday Julia walked to the shop again and rang to report that the panic-buying was getting worse. I have already reported on that.

Sunday was spent watching Murder She Wrote and Diagnosis Murder.

On Monday I packed parcels, as usual, then returned home for lunch. We ate what could best be called a fusion lunch (corned beef hash and pasta bake) to empty the fridge and set off on holiday.

By this time my left hand, the one with the arthritic little finger, started to feel distinctly more arthritic.

We drove through Lincolnshire, reached Norfolk and stopped for coffee at at a roadside McDonald’s. It was there that we had a phone call from Julia’s brother to tell us that the government was banning all unnecessary travel and that hotels were to be closed to act as hospitals.

We made a phone call of our own, to establish that the Travelodge was still open. It was. Listening to the radio we established that the situation was advisory, rather than a Draconian clampdown (which would come later).

We decided that as we were most of the way there the rest of our journey fell into the “necessary” category.

By evening my hand was very swollen and all the fingers were impersonating bananas. I did wonder about getting my wedding ring cut off at one point, but it didn’t quite get bad enough. I had to have it done once after injuring my finger playing rugby with the kids and it’s a simple enough procedure if you know someone with the right tool. The only problem is cutting through the hallmarks, which is a nuisance but doesn’t really affect it in wear once you weld it back again.

We had quite a good time over the next few days, with chips at Aldeburgh, a family meal at Beefeater and Afternoon Tea at the Hatfield Hotel in Lowestoft. Unfortunately I can’t get the photos off the card, so that’s three Scone Chronicles you won’t be getting. The chips on the beach were great, the family meal was excellent and the afternoon tea had the best sandwiches I’ve had so far in the series. It also had sausage roll, a cheese straw, a cheese scone, onion chutney, a fruit scone and a lot of cake. In fact, we needed a doggy bag.

Aldeburgh and Southwold were busy. People are fleeing from London and living in their second homes. They obviously think that the fresh air will preserve them from illness.

The Scallop at Aldeburgh – Julia adding colour and a sense of purpose

On the final day (which was last Thursday, and technically makes this Nine Days I Wouldn’t Want Again) we stopped at the TESCO opposite the Travelodge. Julia offered to pop in for bread and milk while I sat in the car – she is a jewel amongst wives. She reported long queues, empty selves and bad-humoured queuing. There were lines to stand behind and a ban on cash – all the shops are using the crisis to make another attempt at driving cash out of use.

On the way back we stopped at a Garden Centre to meet my sister. In contrast to TESCO it was a good-natured place with full shelves and only about a dozen customers in the place. We had tea and cake and remarked that it really needed a tumbleweeed to add the final touch.

Social distancing had needed three days to take hold, but seemed to be working.

Of course, the Government was on its way to another panic by then…

Management a le poulet sans tete

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Just thought I’d showcase my European credentials and vestigial schoolboy French. Also thought I’d avoid the use of English as I know a number of the words I’d like to use are, whilst accurate, likely to cause offence.

We have moved from a stance of splendid imperturbability to one of headless chicken panic. It took 24 hours. Even news programmes are using words like “drastic escalation” and “dramatic step change”. As of the weekend we will be expected to stop mixing with people and if you are over 70 you have to stay at home for the next three months.

Pelargoniums

If you were to do a bit of minor theft or low level drug dealing you probably wouldn’t get sentenced to three months. Seems that septuagenarians are currently less socially desirable than petty criminals.

It’s not really going to make a lot of difference to me as I am not noted for visiting pubs, theatres and sporting events. I see a few people in the shop but that is it, and as much of our work consists of packing parcels we can’t do it from home.

It’s actually possible, as Julia has signed us up to a neighbourhood help network, that I’ll be seeing more people than I normally do. I have protested that I’m too old to start being nice to people but, as usual, I have been over-ruled.

On a lighter note, the blackthorn is now in flower, which is always my indicator that Spring has sprung. There is a lot of gorse out around Nottingham now, though that isn’t such a good indicator as there is always some gorse in bloom somewhere.

When gorse is out of flower, kissing is out of fashion, as the saying goes.

Rudebekia

My camera card is playing up so the photographs are from my spare card. They are bright and cheery even if they aren’t taken today.